Data centers typically include multiple cooling units, such as, computer room air conditioning (CRAG) units, arranged to supply cooling airflow to a plurality of servers arranged in rows of racks. The cooling airflow is often supplied through vent tiles distributed at multiple locations on a raised floor. More particularly, the cooling units supply cooling airflow into a plenum formed beneath the raised floor and the cooling airflow is supplied to the servers through the vent tiles.
Guaranteed uptime is typically an objective of mission critical data centers. As a result, most data center designs have built-in redundancy in their cooling systems. In typical N+k cooling redundancy designs, the cooling systems often over provision cooling to accommodate possible cooling system component failures. The over-provisioning of the cooling is performed by constantly running all of the cooling units at a capacity targeting the worst case failure scenario. As such, although the desired level of redundancy may be achieved, the cooling efficiency is greatly decreased. Conventional redundancy practices therefore lead to high operational costs and ultimately a high total cost of ownership.